new pasture

[woodspirit]

I have an acre of grass that I want to pasture an animal on next year. How should I go about preparing it ? It is definitely gonna need lime since there are many trees growing there and have wild strawberries, and mosses growing. Gonna take down some of the white pines to let in more sun. Can I just hand spread timothy, clover, and birdsfoot trefoil? What can anyone recommend?

 

[dun]

The first thing is to get a soil sample. Bring it up to test specifications then go from there.
BTW, unless it's really tiny you won;t get much grazing from one acre.

dun

 

[Dave]

I wouldn't use timothy if you are planning to graze the field. A field that small is too easy to over graze and timothy does not hold up well to over grazing. All the other cool season grasses will hold under over grazing better than timothy.
Dave

 

[Anonymous]

What ever you do - do not put a horse on it - it will turn to dirt inside of a month or two.

What are you planning on feeding on one acre?

Bez'

 

[woodspirit]

Dexter cow.
They stand about 40" tall at the shoulder and weigh in at 700 to 800 pounds.

 

[Tony Jr]

Even with a animal that small you need at least two acres if not more.

 

[woodspirit]

What I have heard is that you can put 2 Dexter's on an acre of pasture as they weigh less and do better at converting feed that other cattle won't touch. Where we live in upstate NY there isn't much problem growing grass or anything else. Nobody irrigates lawns or crops. We get alot of rain. Its been raining for a week now and looks like it's gonna continue for another week. We call it rainshine.

 

[Utah]

Hi Woodspirit, If you can find Dexters (hard to do), that would be a fun way to go.

I think that on one acre you could do fine if you supplemented with some good hay and a little grain. Also, you will want to split your pasture into two or three pads by hot wire so you can rotate the cow's grazing.

I had a couple of steers from last April on a little over two acres but had irrigation water. There was so much left over pasture that next year I will be getting 5 or 6 on those two acres. When I rotated them, there seemed to be more to eat.

Here are two links that really helped me - Being a rookie, I am sure to get comments from those with more experience.


http://extension.usu.edu/files/agpubs/ag505.pdf
http://extension.usu.edu/files/agpubs/pasture.pdf


Good Luck!

 

[woodspirit]

Can't get into those two sites.

 

[dj]

Can't get into those two sites.

woodspirit for some reason when you click a link the software is adding an extra http// if you delete the extra http// out of the url it will work right.

 

[dun]

Can't get into those two sites.

woodspirit for some reason when you click a link the software is adding an extra http// if you delete the extra http// out of the url it will work right.

That happens when URLs are posted using the URL box. If you just paste the actual URL and don;t enclose it with anything it will work properly

dun